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Safe Dividend Investing

Safe Dividend Investing

By: Ian Duncan MacDonald
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In 2000, I lost $300,000 in mutual funds that an investment advisor had put my lifesavings into.... I lost it because I had entrusted it to an industry that does not educate investors nor encourage them to look closely at what that industry is doing with their money..... I set out to find a better, safer way to invest..... My podcasts relate to what I learned in creating a generous, reliable income and in growing my wealth.... A few of the more important lessons I learned and explore are:.... (1) It is critical that you become a self-directed investor.....(2) If you can not easily measure the risk and potential in an investment, then do not invest in it. This excludes from your portfolio bundled investment devices, like mutual funds, ETFs and Index funds,..... (3) Financially strong companies who have paid “good dividends” for decades will continue to stay strong and continue to pay good dividends because it is both part of their "character" and in their executives selfish interest.....(4) Diversification is critical. Investing equally in the best 20 strong dividend stocks is the ideal.....A portfolio of 20 limits your risk in any one stock to 5% of your wealth..... No matter how strong you think a stock is, do not fall in love with it..... I have lived very well off my steady dividend income for 18 years, through two market crashes and one pandemic. I have watched my portfolio’s capital more than triple from where I started, despite taking out a generous dividend income every year to live on... In charts, for my second investment book,(Safer Better Dividend Investing), I spent months scoring all 628 dividend stocks paying dividends of 6% or greater traded on the TSX, NYSE and the NASDAQ. I discovered dozens of stocks that can provide not only a generous dividend income but outstanding capital growth.....Financial independence is realizable for careful, patient, dividend investors.

© 2026 Safe Dividend Investing Economics Personal Finance
Episodes
  • Podcast 264 - SCORE STOCKS & BUILD A CONSTANTLY RISING RETIREMENT PORTOLIO

    Podcast 264 - SCORE STOCKS & BUILD A CONSTANTLY RISING RETIREMENT PORTOLIO
    Feb 28 2026

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    Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 264 on February 28th of 2026.

    My name is Ian Duncan MacDonald, and I am the author of 7 investment books. My seventh investment book, Achieving Financial Independence Safely - 200 NYSE Stocks Analyzed and Scored" became available January 3rd on Amazon. You can easily find it by searching in Amazon or Google for "Ian Duncan MacDonald books". For more information safe investing go to www.informus.ca

    I have been retired for 20 years and living very well off my investments. My high net worth continues to grow year-after-year along with my high income. I own no ETFs, no mutual funds or bonds. How is the constant growth in my portfolio possible? Why have I never had to sell any of the stocks in my portfolio to maintain my life style.

    100% of my portfolio is in financially strong, high dividend paying stocks. Even when the share prices declined in the market crashes of 2008 and 2020 my dividend income grew and was not impacted.

    I select the stocks by scoring them. Years can go by without my seeing any need to make changes to my safe portfolio of 20 stocks. In this week's podcast I discuss the 8 scoring factors I use to asses stocks.

    My background was in building commercial risk scoring systems that rated millions of companies for banks, insurance companies and trade suppliers. To me stocks are just another form of commercial risk,

    Ian Duncan MacDonald
    Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
    President of Informus Inc
    2 Vista Humber Drive
    Toronto, Ontario
    Canada, M9P 3R7
    Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
    New York Telephone - 929-800-2397
    imacd@informus.ca
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    25 mins
  • Podcast 263 - ARE YOUR BANK DEPOSITS AND BANK SHARES STILL SAFE?

    Podcast 263 - ARE YOUR BANK DEPOSITS AND BANK SHARES STILL SAFE?
    Feb 21 2026

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    Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 263 on February 21st of 2026.

    My name is Ian Duncan MacDonald, and I am an author of 7 investment books. My seventh investment book, Achieving Financial Independence Safely - 200 NYSE Stocks Analyzed and Scored" became available January 3rd on Amazon. You can easily find it by searching in Amazon or Google for "Ian Duncan MacDonald books".

    How much thought have you put in choosing the bank where you deposit your money? What bank stocks have you chosen to invest in? A quick Google query as to your bank’s ratio of uninsured deposits is either going to reassure you or concern you. Those banks reporting a ratio greater than 50% in uninsured deposits to total deposit have an elevated risk.

    Bank failures can occur just like they did in 2008 when cheap credit and a failure to determine the credit worthiness of home buyers created an inflated housing bubble. When that bubble burst home buyers lost their mortgage deposits and homeowners saw the equity in their houses disappear. Business and consumer bankruptcies and foreclosures spiked. Mortgage-backed securities failed resulting in a recession leading to the Lehman Brothers bank failure. This was the largest bank failure in US history.

    In today's podcast we examine the 5 safest banks in North America and the 5 largest banks in North America.

    Ian Duncan MacDonald
    Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
    President of Informus Inc
    2 Vista Humber Drive
    Toronto, Ontario
    Canada, M9P 3R7
    Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
    New York Telephone - 929-800-2397
    imacd@informus.ca
    Show More Show Less
    22 mins
  • Podcast 262 - HOW TO GET SCAMMERS TO GIVE YOU BACK YOUR MONEY

    Podcast 262 - HOW TO GET SCAMMERS TO GIVE YOU BACK YOUR MONEY
    Feb 14 2026

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    Welcome to Safe Dividend Investing’s Podcast # 262 on February 14th of 2026.

    My name is Ian Duncan MacDonald, and I am an author of 7 investment books. My seventh investment book, Achieving Financial Independence Safely - 200 NYSE Stocks Analyzed and Scored" became available January 3rd on Amazon. You can easily find it by searching in Amazon or Google for "Ian Duncan MacDonald books".

    Realizing a good dividend income from a financially strong portfolio does not mean you can ignore unnecessary drains on your income. For example, have you been scammed, conned, cheated, robbed, or otherwise relieved of money today, yesterday, last week or last month by businesses you thought you could trust? Hopefully the loss was only a few hundred dollars.

    Scammers know that people tend to be more cautious with larger sums. They deliberately keep their scams under a few hundred dollars to remove your incentive to fight to recover what you have lost. The scammers that you will usually encounter aim for high volumes of small, scams rather than a single big one. They count on you treating your loss as a lesson learned and walking away. This allows the scammers to continue scamming others.

    In today's podcast I will explain how you can recover your money from scammers.

    Ian Duncan MacDonald
    Author and Commercial Risk Consultant,
    President of Informus Inc
    2 Vista Humber Drive
    Toronto, Ontario
    Canada, M9P 3R7
    Toronto Telephone - 416-245-4994
    New York Telephone - 929-800-2397
    imacd@informus.ca
    Show More Show Less
    22 mins
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